The Way I See It
by Chatte D'Ange
Summary: A gender-bendered Sonic, possible awkward series crossover pairings, altered meetings, and displaced echidna are only a few of the things you will run into in this SU altverse crackfic gone serious. Buckle up. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
1. Chapter 1

**The Way I See It**

_Story Summary:_ A gender-bendered Sonic, possible awkward series crossover parings, altered meetings, and displaced echidna are only a few of the things you will run into in this SU altverse crackfic gone serious. I borrow elements from where I please, and like both making people laugh and making the characters angst. So buckle up. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic or any related characters, series, trademarks, etc, nor do I own any songs I'll mention. (No, this is not a songfic.) They belong to their respective owners.

Trust me, Sonic and the Secret Rings would've had some kick-awesome cutscenes (and better storytelling) if I owned it (even if I had to animate them myself, which I could've). Alas, I don't, so you'll just have to go read Taranea's _Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart_ to help purge your bad memories of what should have been a rockin' game.

Coulda done better with Elise's frickin' monotone-when-I-should-be-angsting (etc) voice acting, too...

Okay, rant over. Just remember that this is my debut to the Sonic genre, so be gentle when you review, and please please please tell me if you find something too funky/OOC/screwed up to tolerate. Also, warn me of bad grammar/spelling/punctuation. I do check, but sometimes I miss stuff. I am human, you know.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Did you see the "gender-bendered" bit in the summary? Good. Then you know that since girls think differently than guys, Sonic might be acting/thinking a bit OOC. That wasn't a mistake. Just so you know.

Okeyday, enough epic-length author's note. Let's get this party started.

* * *

**Chapter One: The Stage is Set**

**-Sonic POV-**

"_Niyeeh."_ I shudder when the DJ on my favorite pop/rock/alt station (one of the few that actually still plays real songs) reannounces for the third time that hour that all radio stations will be playing a nine-hour-long opera straight through the week—marathon style—starting this Tuesday in honor of Buttnik's birthday. A grimace contorts my face again when a screeching racket of disharmonious arias punctures the almost-quiet.

Oh, pineapple sock sauce. They're giving a preview.

I make a cross at the radio with my index fingers like I'd seen Pastor Miller—the human (yes, an actual human and not an Overlander; he's got five fingers) living in the apartment next door—do when the SWATbot patrols came by, then clap a pillow over my ears in a vain attempt to muffle out some of the gag-worthy noise.

Stupid sucky Egg-Radios can't be turned off. And it counts in your electric bill.

Speaking of eggs, I'm still trying to figure out where the nasty fart that designed these things came from. I mean, Buttnik was bad enough, but this Eggman dude (ever-so-affectionately referred to as Eggface and Eggbutt) is like his evil(er) twin or something. If they were normal badguys, they'd've wiped each other off the face of the planet by now vying for control of said planet. But noooo, they had to decide to work together. They're always fawning over each other in public, telling each other how brilliant they are. Gag city.

Waitaminute. Dude…are they?...naw…but they always…frickin'…I'm gonna laugh if someone finds out they're sleeping together. Gross…

The screeching gets louder, and I pile my blanket and sheets on top of my pillow and stuff my head under it again. Urhrgh. No dice there, either.

Instead of using Uncle Chuck's crowbar to pry the Egg-Radio from its wall mounting and lobbing it off the balcony like I'd like to—we'd get smacked with a major fine, and with my luck it'd hit one of the hobos that come out en masse during rush hour to beg—I drag my history book under the pile with me, trying desperately to lose myself in it, despite the dry, uninspired and generally tedious wording.

Blargh. I forgot that we're studying the chapter on Queen Aleena and her reign this week, so we can get to the start of Robuttnik's reign on his birthday next Tuesday. Naturally, the chapter is full of unsupported bullcrap about how horrible she and her court were.

It made me sad and angry, not only because Uncle Chuck was full of stories about how cool the Queen had been, but because her picture in the history book reminded me of one of the girls in my class. Her name was Sonia, and she was almost exactly how I imagined Queen Aleena—kind, cool, a bit spoiled, and all about fashion and standing up for your own.

I'd met her when I'd gone to use the bathroom and accidentally walked in while she was ranting about her fiancé Bartleby not wanting to spend time with her anymore. Instead of being embarrassed, she, for whatever reason, just started ranting to _me _instead. Even though we aren't really close—we don't really run in the same circles, what with her being a noble and such—we still talk or whatever sometimes. (I still wonder why they just decided to dump all the classes together in one school.) But still, she was a friend, and it kinda felt like the attacks on Queen Aleena were leveled at Sonia, for whatever weird reason.

I throw the history book at the far wall of my room with an exasperated shriek. It hits said wall and then the floor with a satisfying **scrunch**—_THUD._

Hang history homework. That bull had been drilled into us since kindergarten, and anyone who had half a brain, a reasonable memory and the ability to write/recite answers could ace the tests blindfolded.

I make a face at the book, then pull the box that holds all the books Pastor Miller gave to me and Uncle Chuck from the collection he smuggled in from a place called Station Square out from its usual hiding place—a rarely used air vent behind my bedstead. I snag two books—a pocket-sized version of Genesis from a collection called the Bible, and _1001 Nights_—figuring I'll pick up where I left off with Joseph in prison in Genesis, then check out that "Seven Voyages of Sinbad" story I saw in the latter book's table of contents.

Relief comes from both sides as the horrid opera song ends and the strains of Everlife's "Goodbye" take its place. Maybe it'll be a decent night after all…

--oOo--

I wake with a start, cold sweat soaking my fur and my heart threatening to pound out of my chest. Shattered images of a nightmare hang just outside my conscious memory—something to do with black and red, shock and hurt and betrayal, maniacal twin laughs, screams that sounded like Sonia and others I didn't know but were somehow important to me…

_That's the last time I eat a tofu hotdog. __Ever._

Needed to ground myself in reality, I look over at my nightstand, where my alarm clock is blissfully flashing 12 o'clock. It is clearly not 12 at night, as the rays of late sunrise are currently peaking in my window. I snag my watch of the nightstand, and barely keep from spitting out one of the more colorful words in my vocabulary. The hands read seven AM, and school starts at seven-twenty.

…

_Craaap._

I drag on the dreaded uniform that the pervy, terminally-fashion-challenged headmaster makes us all wear, as usual barely able to shinny the ugly low-slung, tight olive-plaid skirt with its one orange pleat in the front over my wide hips and the metabolic-stabilizer-thingy at the base of my tail, and thanking the powers that be that I barely have enough chest to fill a training bra while I get unstuck from the arms-up position I have to use to get the low-necked sorry excuse for a grey-blue sailor shirt on. Long checkered socks and shoes with double pompoms and bum-ugly beret wannabe are next, then I dash down the stairs to kitchen, scarf some cardboard-flavored cereal, down the more vital pills from the collection I jokingly call my mini-pharmacy that helps control my whackball metabolism, and take off as fast as I can go without tripping over my own feet down the sidewalk to the school building. Hurrah for living three blocks away from school.

Thankfully, my first teacher today is Ms. Rouge, and she's one of the few who's cool and nice and somewhat intelligent and won't rat you out if you're a few seconds late getting to your seat. Yay block scheduling. I only have to see the bad ones every other day, and I have my two good teachers today, so I get to start and end my day reasonably well, even if I have three monotone talkers in between.

I plop down in my seat a full two minutes before the bell rings, a new record for my accidental sleep-in days, then jump six inches out of it as the person behind me taps me on the shoulder. There hadn't been anybody sitting behind me yesterday…

I turn around, and am greeted by a grinning Sonia. I grin right back. "How'd you get in this class? Pull the headmaster's teeth?"

Sonia snorts, then opens her mouth to reply. Nothing comes out. I follow her stare to the front of the classroom, and see Ms. Rouge returning to her desk with a sulky red echidna guy following her, dressed in the black button-down school uniform. Huh. Don't see many of them around these days…

I look back at Sonia again, and you can almost see the hearts in her eyes as she looks at him. I snigger, then turn back to admire the view. _On the other hand, having a pervy headmaster that leans both ways makes for great guy ogling._

* * *

*looks up and sees the various stares* Wut? I said it was a crackfic, didn't I? Even if it is a more serious one...

So, whadja think? Do I need to edit this, or should I get started on my next chapter? I'm taking suggestions, btw. I have a large part of the story plotted out, but I like getting ideas I can take off with. And I have no idea how it's gonna end yet.


	2. Chapter 2

"Okay, seriously, who names their kid _Knuckles?_" I incredulously ask my best friends Mighty and Ray at lunch. Thank heaven I packed my lunch last night, because hot lunch is that nasty cricket-bean-cabbage loaf crud. Yuck. These people wouldn't know a decent cricket loaf if it hit them in the eyeball. The bean filler is one thing, but the cabbage is just insulting.

Ray pauses in the middle of aiming an empty walnut shell at that one bee guy who likes to tweak his bushy tail just to rile him up. "Did you _see_ the knuclaws on that dude? I feel sorry for his mom. I'd have named him Knuckles, too, just because I wouldn't have been able to think about anything else after giving birth to him. Those things had to _hurt._" He lets fly the walnut shell and quickly turns around, shoving a bite into his mouth to give himself an appearance of innocence. Said shell bounces off the poor bee's head with a resounding crack, and he doubles over, clutching his injured cranium.

I smirk even as I raise a reproachful eyebrow. My armadillo friend just shakes his head at the flying squirrel. "Ray, remind me to never get on your bad side."

I roll my eyes and return to the subject at hand. "Echidna lay eggs, Ray."

"…Wut?" Ray looks like someone just told him the planet was square.

"His knuclaws are still a defining feature, though, Sonic," Mighty says, ignoring him. "It's kinda like you getting your nickname from wailing on your guitar all the time. Your uncle still swears that one thing sounded like a sonic boom, you know."

"Shut up, Mighty. You know I don't do that anymore. Not since I learned it could mess up my guitar strings, anyway."

Ray laughs. "Bet you broke a string or two before you learned that, though."

I blow a raspberry at them both. They know me too well. "Whatever. Point taken." I change the subject. "Hey, Mighty, you had biology yet?"

"Nope. Not till ninth block. Why?"

"Just be forewarned that Snively's on the warpath today. Seventh block got saddled with a ten-page paper on prokaryotes."

"Thanks for the warning."

-oOo-

My next class drags on to epic length. The so-called "religious education" in this place is a joke. The basic gist is "Religion sucks! Be an atheist, worship the ButtTwins, 'cause they're the greatest scientists ever!"

-oOo-

"Hurgh." My head hasn't moved from where it _thunk_ed onto my desk five minutes ago. "I'm supposed to write a ten-page paper on the 'specific biology of prokaryotes' _how_? Even Readypedia dot net doesn't have more than a couple of paragraphs. Not that we're allowed to use it."

I got home around three, and decided to just get the paper out of the way. It's after eight o'clock now, and I haven't found a single bit of useful information.

Shoulda known that Snively wouldn't have given us an assignment that would allow us to get any sleep.

I'm trying to figure out if I want to expend the energy to lift up my head enough to stick out my tongue at the piece of notebook paper I wrote the assignment requirements on when my LiveChat messenger _bing_s at me.

**lean_green_mischief:** oi! blue! you there?

I almost laugh. This guy has an uncanny tendency to pop up just when I need a lift. It's nice to have somebody there to just _listen_. As much as I love Mighty and Ray, as good of friends as they are, they're more likely to try and "fix" things when I just need to rant. This is one of those things.

**GoldBuckledBlue: **Blargh.

**lean_green_mischief:** uhoh. i sense a rant in the workz. wat they do 2 u this time?

**GoldBuckledBlue:** _You_ try writing a ten page paper on prokaryotes with like no information.

**lean_green_mischief:** O.o sux 2 be u, dude. wuts prokaryotes?

**GoldBuckledBlue:** -_- I'm not a dude, and you know it. A prokaryote is a type of microorganism.

**lean_green_mischief:** u sure ur not a dude? cuz you never go on and on about ur boyband idolz and crud liek all the other girls I kno. ah. i nu that.

**GoldBuckledBlue:** Don't get me started on boy bands. 9.9 XD Riiight.

**lean_green_mischief:** y'd they make u do a paper on microthingies anyway?

**GoldBuckledBlue:** You remember me telling you about that bumblebee freshman kid, right? Well, the moron decides to…

-oOo-

Two hours and a long-winded rant later, I realize that I have yet to eat anything or change out of my uniform. I chuck today's uniform in the laundry since it smells bad from the exploding sulfur incident in biology, shower, and change into black shorts, a red sports bra (more out of a basic sense of modesty than an actual need for it), and my favorite red-and white sneakers. I dunno what it is, but I hate going around without shoes and socks. It bugs me enough that sometimes I even sleep with my shoes on.

Ah, well. There are worse things to be OCD about, I guess.

Instead of pondering my odd habits involving footwear or why someone would put gold buckles on sneakers, I wander into the kitchen and rummage around in the refrigerator, hoping for leftover chili. What I really want is a chili _dog, _but that's not going to happen. We haven't been able to afford real hotdogs for months, and I got desperate enough to try a tofu one yesterday. You saw how that went.

I luck out and find enough leftover chili to satisfy even my monster appetite. Since it's been in the fridge for almost a week, I can justify eating the rest of it. It'd just spoil if I left it in there much longer, and Uncle Chuck doesn't even really like chili that much. My eyes wander over the room while I heat up the entire bowl in the microwave, landing on our phone's blinking message light. Speaking of Uncle Chuck, I wonder if he left a message for me. It's not normal for him to be out past six, or leave me to fend for myself making dinner. I can't cook for the life of me, unless it's microwave macaroni or those toaster waffle things.

I wander over and hit the play button. "Kiddo, I've got some business up at the wharf tonight. I should be back around seven-thirty or so. There's leftover chili in the fridge on the bottom shelf. Should be in the front. Don't bother ordering me any delivery this time. I'll just get something on the way home."

I nod as the message plays. Makes sense. Uncle Chuck runs a hardware store, so it would make sense for him to be at the wharf if he needed to check on a shipment. Then I smirk at the delivery comment. Wasn't _my_ fault they changed the menu. Although it _was_ funny watching Uncle Chuck try to gag down squid "sushi" instead of his favorite crab legs.

The smile dies on my lips when I realize he said he would be back around seven-thirty, and that it is now well after eleven. He should have called again by now. He always calls if he'll be more than half an hour later than he said he would.

The Egg-Radios constantly playing in the house all sound a death nell for the life I've known until now:

"After a vicious, drawn-out firefight, a group of rebel insurgents was neutralized and apprehended at the Southern Wharf around ten o'clock this evening. The rebels will be incarcerated and held until their trial date. It is imperative we know what their business there was. If you know anything at all, please call…"

* * *

Yeah. A cliffhanger. You'll find out that I love doing those. Especially since my updates are so sporadic. Keeps people checking back. ^^ Please click the little gray and green button at the bottom of the page? Thanks!

P.S. If you can't figure out who lean_green_mischief is, you've never seen Sonic Underground. That's okay. You'll find out soon enough.


	3. Chapter 3

Haha, yeah. Been a long time, ne? I haven't abandoned my Transformers stuff, or any of the rest of it, either. I haven't written much in a while because I've been tired of practically everything. Was time for a hiatus. Terminally ill dads and people dying left and right will do that. The homework was just the icing on the crappy cake.

Anyway, this has been sitting in my hard drive for months now, patiently waiting to be posted. It's the only one I _didn't_ want to scrap or rewrite, so it's getting posted now as a reward. I've actually started the next chapter, too, but we'll see how that goes. I might just start somewhere to dump all my plot bunnies so people can keep them amused until I have time to get to them, too.

Anyway, until then, enjoy watching your favorite bent hedgehog having a freak attack.

* * *

My first thought is _Holy crap, they're gonna come here._ _They have Uncle Chuck, and they're gonna come here and get me._ Before I can fully process that, I've got the suitcase out of the top of the entry closest and half stuffed full. That's about when I realize that if I run, they'll know I know about Uncle Chuck, and they'll go after my friends, my teachers, my neighbors to try and get me, or at least get _to_ me. Mischief, Mighty, Ray, Sonia, Ms. Rouge, Pastor Miller, even the guy down the hall that tries to sell us magazines—they'll all be in danger if I run. I don't know what it is they _do_ to traitors and friends of traitors, but even at the age of three I'd heard things. I don't have the _option_ of running_._

_Okay, Sonic. Breathe. Calm down. Think. What do you need to do? Who needs to know about this? What can you do to help Uncle Chuck?_

First things first. I've got to put this suitcase away and get my stuff back where it goes. There might be a horde of ButtKissers and EggSuckers marching over here with a contingent of SWATbots as I speak, and it's not like I can give them some B.H. about going on a camping trip when the last campground within like 80 miles of Robotropolis got leveled and turned into a parking lot over a decade ago.

I'm still hacked they did that. That was my favorite place as a little kid, as brown and dried-out as it was.

Whatever. Back to the present.

My mind turns over strategies as I put things back in their proper places. I wish I knew which of Uncle Chuck's friends are rebels and which ones aren't. And which ones were down at the wharf when that fight went down. Who would be up to hear the radio, and who wouldn't be? Whichever rebels weren't there and weren't up to hear the announcement need to be notified, and fast. But how would I do that, anyway? They've probably had wiretaps and stuff on our phones, computers, everything for months, if not since the beginning. I can only hope they haven't got some kind of video surveillance here in the apartment. I'm screwed if they find out I know.

Marly. Marly wouldn't have been up. She always goes to sleep by nine, and sleeps through everything but the phone and all but the loudest alarms. Uncle Chuck's full of stories of the problems that caused when they were kids. Those two have been tight since they were in diapers, and Marly's a computer genius. There's no way she's not in on the rebellion. She's also wheelchair-bound, so there's also no way she would have been in the fight at the wharf.

Alright. The jerkface ButtKisser brother she lives with works graveyard-to-morning shift at one of Buttnik's factories as a security guard (his decent-paying job being one of the perks of his "privileged position", since robots could do the job ten times as well) and doesn't leave until after one. It's 11:43 now, which means I have time to kill if I don't want him to intercept my call.

Uch. I dunno if I can hang in there that long. I hate waiting on a good day. On a bad day it's practically impossible.

I wander back over to the microwave, and make a face when I discover the middle of the chili is still a block of ice. Crappy refrigerator's been freezing everything on the top shelf for well over a month.

I look over at the phone. The glowing message light only reminds me how little time I may have for anything. What if he's…what if they—No. Can't think like that. Not now.

I've got to find something else to do. I set the microwave for ten minutes and head back to Uncle Chuck's bedroom. The door's unlocked, as it has been since the night I was five years old and started having that horrible nightmare about the guy who looked like my mom's picture. I ran to Uncle Chuck's room crying, and ended up screaming in a pile of little person and blanket and fear on the floor when I couldn't open the door. He's never since even closed the door when he's home, and there's always a light on in the hallway, even though it costs a small fortune to keep anything on at night.

How am I going to pay the bills with him gone?

Wait. Bills. Uncle Chuck's desk. What if he keeps something in that thing that might tie somebody to his rebel group?

It takes me only twenty minutes to sort through everything page by page. Amazing how fast you can go when someone's life might be on the line. I come up with a _very _personal letter there's no way Lisa Carbunkle down the hall would have written, some business correspondence that I can't make heads or tails of, and a ledger with items that would be perfectly legit for a hardware store to sell, but that I also know Uncle Chuck has never sold in the entire time he's been raising me.

Alright. Now, how do I get rid of this stuff? Oh yeah. We've got that industrial-strength blender Lisa gave us from her restaurant days. If I run it through that and use some of the old crap in the back of the pantry that we never use, I can make it look like one of my famous late-night cooking mishaps. I'm overdue for one anyway.

Craptoast. Pastor Miller's books will get us busted, too. _Sigh._ I hate the idea of destroying even that stupid, depressing _Of Mice and Men_ one, but it's not like I can take them back to him after lockdown curfew. You can only go in the doors, not out. Not without a special pass like Marly's ButtKisser brother has, anyway. They open again at six, but 6 o'clock in the morning could, of course, be too late. I can only hope Pastor Miller knows he should probably get rid of his, too.

Alright. Those are blender food, too. I go to my room and drag them out of their hiding place, trying to memorize the names of the books on top in one pass. I decide right then that one day, I'm going to make it to Station Square, get a job, and buy enough books to fill a public library like the one in that Boxcar Children book. Then I'm going to find a rebel cell to fund and kick the ButtTwins off the face of the planet.

But first I've got to get rid of this stuff.


End file.
